


Shaking, Trembling, Falling

by zoeteniets



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Crying, Five Stages of Grief, I Don't Even Know, M/M, POV Robert, Post-Wedding, Prison, Robert does yoga, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-09-25 16:19:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9828914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zoeteniets/pseuds/zoeteniets
Summary: Robert's hands are shaking...Once Aaron is sentenced Robert experiences the five stages of grief.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WellyFullOfAle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WellyFullOfAle/gifts).



> This fic was written as a thank you to the amazing Wellyfullofale for running the wonderfully fun 10 Day Robron Challenge. Becuase nothing says 'thank you' like 2,000 words of angst ;) 
> 
> Brief warning- some of what Robert experiences here are the symptoms of a panic attack and depression.

It has taken a lot of effort, but Aaron has finally convinced Rob to untangle his limbs from his husband's and let him out of bed. He’s tempted to join Aaron in the shower; he definitely needs one as his chest and stomach are both covered in come from last night. They’ve hardly had any sleep, both too consumed with trying to memorise every dip and curve and freckle on each other’s bodies. When Robert closes his eyes the image of Aaron lost in pleasure is seared onto his eyelids. The smell of him is on the sheets. The test of him in his mouth.

Robert regretfully scrubs the evidence of their love-making off his body as Aaron trudges downstairs to be with Chas and Liv. Rob leaves him to it, reasoning that Aaron will want to spend as much time with them as he can, although he is still regretful to have let his husband slip so easily through his fingers.

He stands before the mirror in their room, trying to decide which tie to wear. Part of him desperately wants to wear the tie Aaron was wearing yesterday; to combine the wedding ring with yet another image of Aaron’s total ownership over his heart. When he eventually finds the tie in a heap of clothes at the foot of the bed, he is dismayed to find that is has a large stain on it, probably from some beer or wine that has been sloshed about during the celebrations.

As he rummages through the draws to find a clean tie he gives himself something of a pep talk. Sure, they have been told to expect a custodial sentence, and Aaron does have his former record to contend with. But one could argue that this whole affair was the result of a hate-crime, and Aaron didn’t throw the first punch. Maybe the judge will be lenient and give him time off for protecting Finn. Perhaps they will reduce the sentence on account of the fact that Aaron has pleaded guilty. Maybe they won’t send him down at all…

As he loops the tie he has chosen around his neck and starts to knot it, he notices that his hands are shaking. He takes a deep breath and focuses on his reflection in the mirror while he waits for the jitters to stop. Rob notices that there is a lovebite starting to darken in the hollow on his neck where his ear meets his jaw. He presses his fingers into it until the bruise starts to hurt, and the colour of it darkens even further.   

…

He resists the urge to slam the door, but only just. Liv takes one look at him and scurries out of the room, a mumbled “I’m going to stay with Gabby” thrown over her shoulder. Rob is too busy to watch her go, to preoccupied with looking around the kitchen for something to break.

12 months!

He stills for a bit, disappointed not to find anything he can smash without causing Chas to shout at him. His hands ball into fists as he leans over the sink, halfway to throwing up. He takes a deep, shaking breath and waits for the nausea to pass.

Fuck, he feels so helpless!

Realising there is nothing else for it, he reaches down into the fridge and pulls out a bottle of beer, the cold glass a shock against his clammy fingers. The bottle opener is slippery in his grip, and he can’t quite get the angle right to pop the cap off with it now that his hands are shaking again. He should stop, and take a pause- he knows this. But he’s angry and he wants a goddamn beer.

The bottle slips from his shaking hands, glass shattering on the floor, beer spraying everywhere. The sound of the crash echoes in the empty room.

…

Aaron is sent to Leeds Prison, which is good because it’s less than an hour’s drive away. But Rob can’t help but feel a bit disappointed; he had entertained a faint hope that Aaron would be sent to an open prison.

He’s driving Liv down to see her brother since, as minor, she’s not allowed to visit him unaccompanied. She’s quiet in the car so Rob tries to distract her. They have the radio on so Rob asks her about her opinions on the music. When that doesn’t work, he switches to schoolwork and her upcoming exams, but this just makes Liv deflate further into the car seat.

“I’m sure he will be fine Liv,” Rob says, recognising her attitude for what it is.

“But what if he’s not,” she replies.

“It’s Aaron, you know how strong he is. He’ll get through this. I know he’ll be fine…”

The denial tastes like ash in his mouth.

When they stop at a red light he notices that it is hard to keep his foot down on the clutch; the trembling that he now permanently has to flex out of his hands spreading to his legs. He focuses in the glaring red of the traffic light, puts the car into neutral so that he can take his foot off the clutch and try to put it at an angle to stop his leg shuddering. But, of course, the lights change before he can rest, so Rob forces the car into gear and speeds off, eyes on the road, trying not to think about where it is taking him.

…

He’s tired.

He’s so fucking tired.

He can’t sleep without Aaron in his bed.

This is a tiredness he feels deep in his bones. Rob feels like he could sleep for a week and still feel exhausted upon waking.

God, he misses his husband.

He’s had a low-grade headache now for a whole week. He’s so depressed that it’s nearly impossible to get out of bed. He’s eating so little that even Chas has tried to mother-hen him. Victoria has taken to making him soup and stews when she’s at work because she knows that his stomach is so tightly knotted he can’t digest anything else. Liv brings home a Hitchcock movie one day, saying she has to watch it for school (Rob knows this is a lie- he recognises the DVD as one that he has borrowed off Bob before.) She forces him to watch it with her. He’s so touched by the gesture, that she would try to take care of him when it really ought to be the other way around. But he can’t find any enjoyment in the film. Not without Aaron there to ask asinine questions or to rest his body against.

Tea. Tea will make him feel better. It’s the Great British Cure-All.

It’s going quite well. He has the tea bags in the mugs with the correct amount of sugar and milk. But he makes a mess when his hands start to shake as he pours the boiling water into the second cup. He sighs irritably, annoyed at himself and his horrible betraying hands. It’s only when he’s soaking up the water with a dishcloth that he realises he’s made two cups of tea instead of one, Aaron’s favourite mug standing conspicuously on the countertop.

He takes the second mug up for Liv. He doesn’t wince when his shaking hands spill the tea over the rim of the mug, scalding his hands and staining the carpet.

…

It doesn’t get any less awful. But the days are passing quicker now. He’s busy at the scrapyard and Liv’s exams at school give their scrappy family unit something else to focus on.

Rob is finding it easier to do things these days. He still feels that his heart hasn’t beat properly since the moment that Aaron was taken from him, but the near paralysis of the last month has abated a little.

The house is still quiet, although today that is partly his own fault. He’s encouraged Liv and Gabby to take the day off revision and go and see a film in Hotten that they’ve both been going on and on about. Robert takes his own advice for once and spends the majority of his day lounging in bed, reading a few books that he has been meaning to get through before things got so crazy after Christmas.

Bored with that, he moves onto his Kindle. He’s surprised it still works after being unused for so long. He’s got so much crap on there that he spends a good few minutes clearing off all the apps he doesn’t need, and he feels very virtuous for having placed this little fraction of his life in order.  
He’s amused by some of the things he finds on there. There are games he’s never played, office apps he’s never opened, and even a yoga course that he had completely forgotten about.

Rob had downloaded the yoga app way back when he was still with Chrissie. She’d had an idea of converting one of the disused stables at Home Farm into a yoga studio, and then running spa breaks incorporating some of the treatments already on offer at her salons. They’d even been to a few classes together for research, although it would never have been something Rob would have thought about doing on his own.

Yoga is meant to be good for the mind, right? And it would be very nice to work on his flexibility for when Aaron gets out of prison. He can just imagine Aaron’s delighted expression when he lays his husband down in bed and shows off all the new and exotic things his body can do.

Rob picks out a course called ‘Desert’ which supposedly ‘ _unwinds the mind, unravels the body, and opens the heart_ …’ (though Robert is not quite sure what an ‘open heart’ is meant to be.)

The app plays soothing repetitive music at him as a voice instructs him to ‘ _come into your wide child’s pose_ ’. He remembers this pose from the class he too and sets about arraigning himself on the floor.

Some of the poses are easy, but he struggles to put his heels down in the ‘ _downward dog’_ position. At one point, he knocks a bottle off the dressing table when he extends his leg, and he can’t help but think how much easier this would be to do in the bigger rooms of the Mill. He even manages to work up a sweat at one point.

The moves change, with positions held for strength instead of flexibility. His whole body shakes as he tries to hold the ‘ _plank’_ pose, and he is sure that his arms will give out sending him straight to the floor. But he manages the full 60 seconds of holding and feels terribly proud of himself.

The music changes to lower, quieter tone as the voice _‘invites’_ him to come into his _Savasana_ pose and to cover his eyes if he so chooses. Rob remembers this as the ‘ _corpse pose_ ’ and does as the app instructs, lying with his back flat against the floor. The voice guides him through his breathing and he feels quite soothed, although trying not to think about Aaron and what he’s doing at this exact moment in time is difficult.

He expects the music to stop at any time now, but it doesn’t, forcing Robert to keep breathing. Out and in. Out and in.  

 

He lies there on the bedroom floor for about a minute before he realises that he is crying.

 

He stays down there for longer than the app tells him to, partly because he doesn’t think he can actually move and partly because he is still inexplicitly crying. Of all the times he could have spontaneously started crying in the last month, Rob is almost surprised that it is happening now, just when he thought that he had managed to clear his mind enough to not think about the gaping hole in his life and heart.

He’s not sobbing. These aren’t ugly tears. But as he lies there he feels one hot tear after the other creep silently down the side of his face and onto the floor. He stays there until they stop.

 

When he stands up, his hands no longer shake.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Come scream at me on tumblr- I'm iwillsendapostcard.


End file.
